There are several combat mechanics to master depending on your class. In the case of the Sorcerer, you must understand how Crackling Energy works, what it does, and how to further improve it to increase your damage in Diablo 4.
If you are thinking of starting a Sorcerer character, here is everything you need to know about Crackling Energy in D4.
What’s the Sorcerer’s Crackling Energy in Diablo 4?
There are certain Status Ailments in Diablo 4 that are class-exclusive meaning you will be able to use them only if you have that same class build. So, if you want to use the Crackling Energy mechanic, you’ll need to turn toward using a Sorcerer class build.
Since you’ll be working with lightning skills in this class, you can look toward pursuing the skill tree branches that help you boost the Crackling Energy Orbs.
Crackling Energy works similarly to the Necromancer’s Blood orbs in Diablo 4, except instead of the red orbs that healed, you’ll be picking up blue orbs that will give you a passive Shock DPS boost.
How to use Crackling Energy
For Crackling Energy orbs to spawn in Diablo 4 you’ll need to make use of different Enchantments and Skills from the Sorcerer class.
After having equipped the Enchantments and Skills, every time you deliver a successful lightning chain attack ending with a critical strike you will have a chance to spawn Crackling Energy orbs.
Now if you look just above your XP bar you will notice a bar that will indicate the number of Crackling Energy Charges you have. A charge is used up every time you deal damage with this ability.
After you see blue orbs of crackling energy spawn near an enemy when you deliver a crit at the end of the lightning chain, you can simply walk toward it to collect it to fill your Crackling Energy charges.
This will also automatically trigger the Crackling Energy shock attack and chain it to multiple enemies close to you while will allow you to automatically rack up some additional, passive DPS.
You can also combine multiple skills and enhancements to further increase your Crackling Energy Orb spawn chances.
Before unlocking a skill in the skill tree be sure to check whether it helps prop your Crackling Energy. For this, you can simply scroll over a skill and look at the description that pops up.
Some useful skills that you should look to invest in the skill tree are:
- Destructive Chain Lightning: 25% Crackling Energy spawn chance from crits.
- Static Discharge: 5 – 15% Crackling Energy spawn chance from crits.
- Mystical Teleport: Crackling Energy shock damage on two more enemies for 4 seconds.
- Invigorating Conduit: + 4 mana after absorbing blue Crackling Energy Orbs.
You can also level up to 15 to use the Enchantment Slot System which will allow you to boost your skills further by equipping spells onto a slot. Look over to the Enchantment Effects to see what boosts you get for adding a spell onto an Enchantment Slot.
Since Crackling Energy’s shock damage on its own isn’t that game-changing, it may be worth combining it with a few other useful skills to utilize its full potential.
For example, you can add a Lightning Spear enchantment which will allow your Sorcerer to cast more spears. This is going to be in addition to the Crackling Energy shock damage that you do after landing a lightning chain critical attack.
For adding Legendary Aspects to your build that maximizes Crackling energy usage we have two in mind.
Charged Aspect: additional movement speed for 4 seconds after you pick up Crackling Energy orbs.
Aspect of Splintering Energy: increase the chance of delivering a second lightning spear once you spawn the first one.
